How values ​​support every company & team

Societies, religions, families and groups of friends have one thing in common – they are based on common norms and values. They help us to feel part of a group of people because we share that basic attitude. The individual person and their characteristics are at first negligible. The base offers the big picture, which, as different as one may be, is, why one got in this group in the first place. Values ​​are important to the individual because we can identify with them and feel understood in the group.

Companies and teams as subgroups can also exist without values, but they can bring different benefits that trigger a certain chain reaction. Through collaborative identification, employees feel more comfortable and more connected to the company. Employee retention increases significantly and the individual employee assumes more responsibility in his or her actions. This all leads to increased motivation and willingness to work and the employees like to come to work.

Find values

The values ​​of each company can be found out differently. On the one hand, one can orientate oneself on the mission & vision statement. For example, if you look at the IKEA Vision Statement, you can directly derive the first values. IKEA says, “Our vision is to make better every-day life for many people”. The values ​​that can be derived from this are helpfulness and openness to all people. Nike says “bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete * in the world. (* If you have a body, you are an athlete.) “. Here you can derive improvement, motivation & openness for every person.

Those who do not have a mission or vision statement at hand, because they want to establish values ​​for a team in the company, can also carry out a simple self-evaluation. For this you can simply ask all parts of the team anonymous and equal, which values ​​are personally important to them in the company / team. Everyone should have the same say, free of hierarchy or position. This diverse mix of personalities and attitudes gives you a comprehensive view of the company / team.

Once you have collected these values, you can discuss them with everyone and find out what they mean to the individual. Even if terms such as respect, family or future-oriented will be named more often, everyone has a different idea of ​​the meaning for themselves. Through this open exchange, as a boss or team leader, you can quickly find out which values ​​are of high importance to the entire team and how they can best be implemented for the community.

Implement values

Once you’ve found the values, it’s important to use them and implement them properly. This can mean a big change in how we deal with each other. It should not be ignored that change always takes time, especially if it breaks old routines. For a change, it is important that the values ​​are current and not an e-mail that will be put in a folder. New values ​​can be brought in very well in stand-up meetings or short workshops, keeping them in the minds of colleagues. Here it is important that the methods are based on the values. In a more conservative company, which is based on stability and reliance on best practices, a piñata party to celebrate the disruption is inappropriate.

Values ​​in the company vs. values ​​in the team

Every company is made up of different departments and even if values ​​have already been determined for the company, a team can once again refine the values ​​and go into great detail. For example, for a software vendor, developers will have different values ​​than the customer support or  the sales team. Of course, the higher values ​​are still valid, but sometimes the team feeling can improve again, if you add to the normal values ​​of respect, trust and family dealing with each other special team values. For example, it may be that the developers expand these values ​​for their team by the terms forward-looking & open source preferred or the sales team expands the values for their team by the words outgoing, eloquent and open.

Conclusion

Values ​​bring a point to the company and various teams with which they can identify. This brings benefits in motivation, productivity and employee retention, which directly affects the company’s external representation. Finding values ​​is a communicative exercise that brings the employees closer together and ensures that colleagues get to know each other better. If values ​​are lived by the employees, these are a good advertisement for what the company or team stands for.